Monumental sculpture in roman Dalmatia is crucial for investigating iconographic imagery of
gods in that period. It shows the beginning, development and blossom of the religious
consciousness of the population back then. Examples of the statues are well preseved and
suitable for analysis. Nenad Cabi , F. C. A., has written the most about this topic and his
research results were main guide material used for writing this paper.
Roman Dalmatia, as a source of the scluptural legacy of Croatia, gives enough material for
studying the topic of this paper. Most of the statues depicted the deities that were the most
popular for that time being, for example Jupiter, Venus, Artemis, Dionysus and the very popular
demigod Hercules. Their iconographic features were similar or even identical as the ones in
other parts of the Roman Empire. There are of course exceptions to that rule that is statues that
have new and original iconographic images and new features added to popular deities such as
the statue of the goddess Roma from Equum or the statue of the goddes Artemis with a killed
fawn from Tilurium. We can also notica that the statues are made of differnt materials which
helps us to define if the sculpture is a local product such as the statue of goddes Fortuna made
of local limestone or a imported product as the statue of Artemis depicted as a lightbearer made
of marble.
The most important thing is to recognize the right iconograohic image and try to align it to the
correct deity to be able to understand the use and meaning and to further the discussion and the
reasearch of this topic.